“The situation of the United States of America in relation to the Inter-American Human Rights System is characterised by its reluctance to engage fully in the system.”- María Díaz Crego [international law expert] Ever since the IAHRS was created in 1948, the United States (“US”) has been non-committal in its…

Statelessness, the condition of not being considered a national by any state under operation of its laws, constitutes a continuing and significant human rights violation. Statelessness often results from a malfunctioning human rights regime where states reserve for their citizens protections such as access to healthcare, education, and employment. Surely…

The right to a nationality is foundational towards the protection and fulfillment of basic human rights. If you have ever crossed an international border, chances are you hold a national identity document that entitles you to not only leave but also return to your country of residence. Most stateless persons…

The earth is warming. Since the industrial period began in 1760, human activity has released enormous amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into Earth’s atmosphere. Today, greenhouse gases are more abundant in the atmosphere than at any time over the past 800,000 years. These gases have intensified the…

The idea of a “Global North” and a “Global South” divides the international stage between two sets of actors. The Global North refers to those actors coming from European and North American countries that are generally wealthier than those situated in the “Global South.” By contrast, the Global South consists…

BU’s International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) Team Tibet has had ample opportunity to contemplate China’s place within the United Nations human rights system in our work on Tibetan issues. For several years now, the IHRC has partnered with the Tibet Justice Center (TJC), a member of the Tibet Advocacy Coalition…

In late August of this year, US Customs and Border Patrol agents found a two-year-old boy in the Arizona desert next to the bodies of his mother and 10-year-old sister. While the boy survived, he was in need of medical attention and taken to a hospital. …

The Boston University International Human Rights Clinic is currently in the fourth year of a project mapping the issues of statelessness throughout the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) by engaging in country-by-country in-depth studies. As discussed in a recent blogpost, in 2020–2021 we focused on Egypt. Unlike Lebanon, Jordan…

In China’s remote northwestern region of Xinjiang, approximately 800,000 to two million people — largely Uighurs as well as ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks, nearly all Muslim — have been detained since 2017 in what the Chinese government calls “re-education camps.” Children of those detained in Xinjiang are often forced to…